The Boston Globe, June 21, 2010
About 50 social workers and police officers gathered Thursday at Newton-Wellesley Hospital for a seminar on the subject organized by the office of Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone.
“There are so many barriers to disclosure and conventional ways of thinking about abuse and violence, we want to help change the mindset of the people who see it and prosecute it,’’ said Leone in a telephone interview.
Approximately 85 percent of women seeking shelter from domestic violence in the state also reported pet abuse in their home. About 50 percent of children in shelter care reported protecting household pets from harm, and as many as 25 percent of domestic violence victims have reported that concern for their pets was a factor in their decision to leave or stay with an alleged batterer, according to Leone’s office.
Newton-Wellesley is enthusiastic about the coalition’s efforts to address the problem, said Erin Miller, coordinator of the hospital’s domestic- and sexual-violence services unit.
“We’ve seen these connections and it is really heartening to see us start to talk about it,’’ Miller told the group.
Frail elders are particularly susceptible to abusers who threaten to harm their pets. Often an animal is their most cherished companion and “threatening or actually harming a pet is a very effective way of controlling the victim,’’ said Marian Ryan, general counsel for the Middlesex DA’s office. She also cited the case of Montiero Green, a Framingham man who was convicted last year of abusing two women and attempting to kill one of them. Before Green was arrested for assaulting the women, he killed the family cat and abused one of the victim’s dogs by hurling it out of a second-floor window, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Dr. Lorna Grande, coordinator of the Berkshire County-based Human/Animal Violence Education Network, said her coalition had found that in 88 percent of the child-abuse cases it handled, pets in the home were also subject to abuse or neglect. She said her group is working on a statewide foster care program for endangered pets, so that victims of abuse can be assured their animals will not be harmed or killed if they leave their homes.
Training first-responders, such as police officers and paramedics, about the connection between animal abuse and family violence will help officials gauge a situation, and allow the authorities to prosecute an abuser for animal cruelty when human victims are unwilling or afraid to testify, said Berkshire Assistant District Attorney Kelly Mulcahy. “The most important part of effective intervention is recognizing the link’’ between animal and domestic violence, she said.
Other seminar speakers included Pittsfield Police Officer Jeff Kemp and Peter Gollub, director of law enforcement for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The MSPCA has been actively lobbying for a bill introduced last year by state Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, a Waltham Democrat, that would allow judges to include pets in temporary restraining orders sought by victims of domestic abuse. The bill, which would also provide protection for people offering temporary foster care for the pets, is before the House Judiciary Committee, said MSPCA spokesman Brian Adams.
